Read Online The Temporary Gentleman by Sebastian Barry - Free Book Online
Authors: Sebastian Barry
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didn’t come out as far as this, but would be depositing Mai further back along the road, and I got out of the car and waited for her. I was veritably trembling.
But she didn’t seem to be coming. I hadn’t seen her now for a long time and maybe at Christmas I had had the sense that she wasn’t making much of an effort to see me. Maybe the whole thing was over and maybe it was better so. And what was it anyhow, but a mismatch between two people from different worlds? That was a small part of my response, right enough. But the greater part of me was caught now in a tidal surge somewhere between longing and anguish. The salt wind scoured my face, and although the rain held off, you could smell it, and almost see it, walking across the wide acres of the sea below. I felt abandoned. Then suddenly she was there.
‘Mai,’ I said.
‘Jack,’ she said. ‘It’s bloody cold out here. What were we thinking of?’
‘I’ve missed you, Mai, so much,’ I said, wondering would I hazard a kiss, or a touch of my hand on her cheek? But she stood there, as if stalled, out of reach somehow, in her fur-collared coat, her hair neatened back and hidden by her hat. She always knew the thing that would suit her. Then she leaned in after all and kissed me, and stood back again. The joy of it, I had to shake my head to get rid of the dizziness she had created. She stood there now, smiling, at her ease. I took the opportunity just to look at her. The face, the eyes I had longed to see again. What is it that starts to bind one soul to another? It is so often like holding an opinion that all the world seeks to refute. But she seemed to me proud, beautiful, and honest. As I stood there in my polished shoes, and my own youth, and regarded her, I knew that I loved her.
We were halfway across the great strand, walking arm in arm, when the deluge struck. She loosened her grip on my arm, and we went careering across the sand, hand in hand, the rain itself as if getting over-excited, leaping at us, and then Mai against my expectation bursting out into laughter, wonderful laughter fulfilling all the adjectives of laughter, pealing, wild laughter, and I knew that it was a genuine delight to her, to be running like that, our leather shoes being ruined by the seawater and the rain, just a kingdom of wetness, till we reached the place she must have been heading for, a cave in the far cliff, which we now threw ourselves into, not a big cave at all, low but enough for me to stand in, with a long sucked-out section where the sea had forced its way in and out, in and out for a million years, beginning long before such creatures as ourselves were on the earth. There, suddenly, she took a hold of me, she just fetched me to her, as if the movement were a peremptory word of some kind, and God knows if we were dressed or naked, I couldn’t say, only lunatics would take off their clothes in an Irish summer, the memory itself is the colour of the new darkness and the old rain, we are blanked out there, but she is kissing me, I can lay claim to be the dependable recorder of that, the very historian, and I am kissing her, and the back of my drenched head is lifting, and I am as happy as man ever was, in the whole history of the world, to be present there, to have reached that moment, of being with her, to be the object of her hunger.
Her father was old for a father and in the way of things he died.
There was a big cortège leaving Grattan House, himself in the horse-drawn hearse. They only had to bring him a few yards to the church. Every now and then, as the priest spoke about him, Mai let out a sort of primeval cry. I put my arm around her in the pew and felt the furnace of grief in her.
Her mother was quiet, as if grief had sewn her mouth with a cruel stitch. I was sitting between Mai and her brother Jack, because there was no one to stop me now, and I felt an odd sense of disgrace in being there, though no one among the living said anything
But she didn’t seem to be coming. I hadn’t seen her now for a long time and maybe at Christmas I had had the sense that she wasn’t making much of an effort to see me. Maybe the whole thing was over and maybe it was better so. And what was it anyhow, but a mismatch between two people from different worlds? That was a small part of my response, right enough. But the greater part of me was caught now in a tidal surge somewhere between longing and anguish. The salt wind scoured my face, and although the rain held off, you could smell it, and almost see it, walking across the wide acres of the sea below. I felt abandoned. Then suddenly she was there.
‘Mai,’ I said.
‘Jack,’ she said. ‘It’s bloody cold out here. What were we thinking of?’
‘I’ve missed you, Mai, so much,’ I said, wondering would I hazard a kiss, or a touch of my hand on her cheek? But she stood there, as if stalled, out of reach somehow, in her fur-collared coat, her hair neatened back and hidden by her hat. She always knew the thing that would suit her. Then she leaned in after all and kissed me, and stood back again. The joy of it, I had to shake my head to get rid of the dizziness she had created. She stood there now, smiling, at her ease. I took the opportunity just to look at her. The face, the eyes I had longed to see again. What is it that starts to bind one soul to another? It is so often like holding an opinion that all the world seeks to refute. But she seemed to me proud, beautiful, and honest. As I stood there in my polished shoes, and my own youth, and regarded her, I knew that I loved her.
We were halfway across the great strand, walking arm in arm, when the deluge struck. She loosened her grip on my arm, and we went careering across the sand, hand in hand, the rain itself as if getting over-excited, leaping at us, and then Mai against my expectation bursting out into laughter, wonderful laughter fulfilling all the adjectives of laughter, pealing, wild laughter, and I knew that it was a genuine delight to her, to be running like that, our leather shoes being ruined by the seawater and the rain, just a kingdom of wetness, till we reached the place she must have been heading for, a cave in the far cliff, which we now threw ourselves into, not a big cave at all, low but enough for me to stand in, with a long sucked-out section where the sea had forced its way in and out, in and out for a million years, beginning long before such creatures as ourselves were on the earth. There, suddenly, she took a hold of me, she just fetched me to her, as if the movement were a peremptory word of some kind, and God knows if we were dressed or naked, I couldn’t say, only lunatics would take off their clothes in an Irish summer, the memory itself is the colour of the new darkness and the old rain, we are blanked out there, but she is kissing me, I can lay claim to be the dependable recorder of that, the very historian, and I am kissing her, and the back of my drenched head is lifting, and I am as happy as man ever was, in the whole history of the world, to be present there, to have reached that moment, of being with her, to be the object of her hunger.
Her father was old for a father and in the way of things he died.
There was a big cortège leaving Grattan House, himself in the horse-drawn hearse. They only had to bring him a few yards to the church. Every now and then, as the priest spoke about him, Mai let out a sort of primeval cry. I put my arm around her in the pew and felt the furnace of grief in her.
Her mother was quiet, as if grief had sewn her mouth with a cruel stitch. I was sitting between Mai and her brother Jack, because there was no one to stop me now, and I felt an odd sense of disgrace in being there, though no one among the living said anything
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